Generally, you must be 30 pounds overweight be to considered obese. Using the
body-mass index, a 5-foot-10 man would be considered overweight if he is between
174 to 208 pounds, and obese at 209 pounds or more.
Overall, baby boomers who were underweight or obese had an increased risk of
death compared with normal-weight people. The risk was particularly high for
Hispanics, Asians and American Indians than for whites and blacks. However,
people who were merely overweight had no substantial increased risk.
But in a separate analysis of 186,000 healthy people, who had never smoked
overweight people were 20 to 40 percent more likely to die prematurely than
normal-weight people. The risk increased two- to three-fold for obese people.
CDC spokeswoman Karen Hunter declined to comment on the federal study, saying
the public health agency does not comment on research done by other government
branches.
In a separate study of 1.2 million Korean patients, ages 30 to 95,
researchers from the Yonsei University in South Korea and Johns Hopkins
University's Bloomberg School of Public Health reported similar findings.
Among about half a million healthy non-smokers, overweight people had a 10 to
50 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease or cancer than normal-weight
people.
The two studies clearly show that being overweight "is not a benign
condition," said Dr. Frank Hu, an epidemiologist and obesity researcher at the
Harvard School of Public Health.
"The public health message should be loud and clear: Maintaining a healthy
weight and preventing weight gain in middle age is important to maintaining
longevity," said Hu, who was not connected to the research.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Tim Byers of the University of Colorado
recommended taking "small steps toward weight control, such as short bursts of
activity" and changes to diet.
Several years ago, Byers eliminated powdered doughnuts from his diet and lost
10 pounds. With a current BMI of just over 27, he looks for other ways to shed
the weight like climbing stairs instead of taking the elevator to his
fourth-floor office.
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